A successful future for Netherbird? - 90%

Blood Orchid is the second release of Swedish doom/death metal band, Netherbird.

This was the first time I heard the band, and it changed my view of metal. I received a message through Myspace from Nephente asking if I would check out the band, I did and it was amazing.
At the time, Netherbird was unsigned, though they didn't sound like it. The EP is fairly small, containing 3 songs. Anyway lets look at the songs.

The title track, "Blood Orchid" starts out slow with death growls and progresses combining black and death metal vocals. The song makes use of Nephente's great vocal abilities. The vocals and guitars match up perfectly. Blood Orchid is the second longest track, and is much darker in my opinion than the others. Its basically a great doom metal song.

The second song "Ashen Nectar" is a much heavier song than the title track, and more progressive. Ashen Nectar uses a choir along with faster guitars and more selection in vocals. The song is nearly 8 minutes long, and takes major turns. Staying mostly doom metal, with some slower guitars and death growls. Ashen Nectar takes alot of style from Netherbird's first release "Boulevard Black" such as whispering vocals, faster parts and slower parts.

The third and final track is a cover of Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio's "Love Under Will." Starting out with an acoustic guitar solo and growling leading into death metal vocals and whispering eventually leading into black metal vocals. Love Under Will is much slower than the other songs. This song is much shorter than the rest, clocking in at 3 minutes 14 seconds. This song is a great ending to the EP.

The overall production of the album is magnificent. The music is cleaned up and sounds clear. And the best part about it, you can download the entire EP for free!